With her family cheering from the sidelines, Alexis Pana delivered an inspired performance to lead Pilipinas Aguilas to the finals of the 2025 Women’s Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League Invitational Tournament last Sunday.
The 5-foot-9 guard filled the stat sheet in their 78-49 domination of Far Eastern University in the quarterfinals, tallying five points, five rebounds, eight assists, two steals, and one block to help the Aguilas punch their ticket to the semifinals.
Pana then registered 15 points, nine rebounds, four assists, and four steals in almost 37 minutes of action in the team’s 65-48 win over Pool A top seed Discovery Perlas to barge into the best-of-three finale.
“It’s just really nice that the Aguilas have chosen me to come here and play, especially for my family. The WMPBL has opened up a lot for us so it’s just really nice to be able to make it to the finals,” she said after the win last Sunday.
The Fil-Hawaiian guard shared that it was a special moment for her and her family, who hadn’t seen her play live since before the pandemic. Her parents and grandmother flew in to watch both the quarterfinals and semifinals, before heading back to the United States last Monday.
(C) WMPBL
“It’s really nice to have my family here, especially because they haven’t watched me play in person since probably college, which was like 2020. So it was really nice to have my family here,” said Pana.
Earlier this year, the former Central Washington University standout traveled to the Philippines to chase her dream—and her family’s—of having them see her play in their homeland.
With that dream finally checked off her bucket list, Pana is now focused on her next goal: helping the Pilipinas Aguilas capture the inaugural WMPBL Invitational Tournament title.
The Aguilas, the only team to hand the University of Santo Tomas a loss in the tournament, are set to face the Growling Tigresses once again in the finals, which begin Wednesday at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum
(C) WMPBL
“As long as we do the corrections that we need to, and we play together like we did tonight, and we work on the scouting report for UST because we already played them once, we kinda know what they do so we just have to make adjustments for the game.”
